Minute media - internship
Introduction
In this project, our primary objective was to clarify the purpose behind improving communication processes within the organization, identify the key challenges posed by the Voltax system and inter-user collaboration, and explore how these factors impact the company’s overall productivity. Ultimately, we focused on developing actionable strategies to enhance the existing system and ensure it meets the company’s key performance indicators (KPIs).
My Role
UX Research and Design
Collaborated with different teams and presented the
final design to the design VP
But first who is Minute media (customer)
Minute Media, founded in 2011, is a global media and technology company operating as a digital platform for sports content. Its mission is to empower fans with tools to create, share, and engage around sports. Among its brands are DBLTAP, Mental Floss, and 90min. By blending professional journalism with user-generated contributions and leveraging technology, Minute Media caters to diverse fan interests while fostering a strong community.
90 min logo
Problem
As part of our internship, which lasted about eight weeks, our role was to enhance communication in the company’s writer and editor system, known as Voltax. We needed to pinpoint where the issue was occurring and, through research and the tools we had learned, identify the root problem and propose a solution that would improve communication among the system’s users.
Research Strategy
Double Diamond Method
We utilized the Double Diamond method, consistent with Minute Media's research approach, under the guidance of our mentors.
Hypothesis: Communication and collaboration issues exist among different platform users.
Reception: Acknowledged by the product team, leading us to perform competitor and user research.
Research Plan: We operationalized the issues into a structured research plan focusing on communication and collaboration.
Discover - Competitor Research
Fundamental assumption - We wanted to understand the macro-level trends in similar platforms that focus on principles of communication and collaboration in digital products. Additionally, it is important to identify the weaknesses of these competing products so that we can implement improvements in our system.
Research Plan - We assessed the usability of different systems across key criteria such as collaboration, CMS, rich text editors, project management, and role management, focusing on Voltax's primary usage. Our research involved analyzing major market players, assuming their success due to significant resource investment. We identified recurring patterns and drew insights from positive ones while checking for negative patterns in Voltax. We then detailed the main features of each platform for comparison.
Findings
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Minimalist design that displays only relevant information reduces cognitive load.
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From the task management platforms we surveyed, we observed that presenting dashboards and analytics drives user action.
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We noted the importance of reflecting system status to users by displaying key parameters such as task statuses, prioritization, and deadlines.
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We found that providing feedback on every action that occurs on the platform is crucial for keeping users informed about all activities.
Discover - User Interviews
Research Plan - To address the key issue of collaboration between editors and writers, we developed specific interview questions for each role. We wanted to understand their daily routines, how they use the system, and how they communicate. Here's how we conducted the interviews:
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Introduction: We introduced ourselves and let the interviewee introduce themselves.
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Questions: We asked about their role and daily tasks.
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Follow-up: If needed, we asked more detailed questions and had them show us how they use the system.
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Feedback: We responded to keep the conversation relaxed.
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Closing: We thanked them for helping with our research.
Afterward, we analyzed the interviews to identify key themes, focusing on common challenges and how both primary and secondary system features are used.
Main findings
Writer Presective
Lack of immediacy: Important work-related tasks and messages may get lost due to communication gaps. For instance, Slack is used for general discussions, and email for urgent tasks, but neither provides immediate notifications.
Using multiple platforms: Using multiple platforms like Google Sheets, Slack, Mail, and Voltax simultaneously leads to wasted time.
Lack of notifications: The absence of system alerts or feedback creates uncertainty and inefficiency, as users must search for updates manually, such as when an editor makes corrections or assigns articles.
Editor Presective
Platform Usage and Transition: Significant time is lost switching between platforms like Google Sheets, Slack, Mail, and Voltax. Tracking activities and using different tools for communication and task management like Monday.com for complex issues adds inefficiency.
Optimizing Collaborative Work: Lack of real-time notifications disrupts synchronization between editors and writers, extending work processes. There's a need for a system that supports remote brainstorming and content creation to improve feedback efficiency and task management.
Editor - Rick
Backround -Rick, a 30-year-old English Literature graduate from Liverpool, edits with professionalism and impartiality. Passionate about football, he maintains up-to-date knowledge of the sport, enhancing his editing skills with SEO expertise.
Motivation -
- Publish as many articles as possible to support company goals.
- Streamline work management, status updates, and logistics within the work timeframe to allow more time for editing.
- Maintain efficient communication with writers to ensure smooth operations.
Switching Between Different Systems: Using various platforms creates confusion and heavily relies on memory, increasing the risk of errors.
System Does Not Reflect Task Statuses: Editors must check Google Sheets for updates on article statuses, which complicates focusing and wastes time.
Lack of a Dedicated Task Management System: Primary users—writers and editors—manage tasks via external tools, disrupting workflow.
Communication Difficulties Between Editors and Writers: The absence of direct responses in the system hinders real-time feedback between editors and writers.
Main pain points
Discover - Personas
Tomi - Writer
Backround - 25-year-old from London. He is a freelance writer for 90min. Holding a degree in Communication and Marketing,He has strong writing, research, and communication skills. However, as he is paid per article, his commitment to the company may vary.
Motivation -
Pain points
- Write as many articles as possible to ensure a stable income.
- Focus on producing quality content that generates high viewership, maintaining a successful freelance career at 90min.
Main pain points
Platform Usage and Transition: Time is wasted due to the use of multiple platforms, such as Slack, which can cause high-importance tasks to get lost.
Lack of Notifications: The system does not provide alerts about activities, leading to uncertainty and reliance on other tools.
Communication Gaps: There is a lack of direct communication within the platform, which can hinder effective collaboration.
Define - How Might We ?
What is How might we ?
It's a process where we reframe the central theoretical problem into operational questions. We convened a brainstorming session to generate a wide range of effective and creative ideas.
The Process
Along the process we focused on the pain points, motivations, and objectives derived from interviews & personas. Then, we attempted to translate these needs into a broad "how might we" question to define the solution.
Our findings....
How might we improve writers and editors collaboration on the Voltax platform. ?
How might we create one place for collaborative work and communication between writers and editors?
How might we create a faster quality way to publish articles?
How might we consolidate the users' collaboration and management of various systems to one organized and convenient system?
Our How might we map
After each team member independently raised questions in the subsequent process, we reviewed the questions written by each member. We checked for overlaps, whether they were phrased positively, if they were sufficiently general rather than too specific, and their relevance to the central problem. Finally, we categorized and consolidated them.
And by the end We chose ........
How might we improve writers and editors collaboration on the Voltax platform?
Define - KPI's
At this stage, we have defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which are the parameters we measure and determine what will be considered a "success" at the organizational-business and product characteristic levels.
Main KPI's
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Maximize the working time of editors and writers on the platform.
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Reduce task management time and minimize transitions between platforms.
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Decrease the number of tasks that get lost in other tools.
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Reduce the response time to system activity.
Secondary KPI's
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Minimize the time it takes from when an article is created to when it is published.
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Enhance the quality of the articles, as reflected in increased viewership.
Our Kpi's
Define - User Flow
Opening the homepage on the platform + an overview of the tasks + brainstorming with team members → Creating a new article topic / Editing a received article → Review + Feedback → Responding to the writer for revisions → Receiving the revised article → Publishing the article
Opening the homepage on the platform + task overview → Creating a new article / Editing an existing article with editor review → Sending the article for editor's review → Receiving feedback → Publishing the article.
Develope & Deliver - Mvp brain storm
Initially, we proposed two possible solutions:
Collaboration and work management: We focused on this solution because it aligned well with our user research outcomes and the problem definition (HMW).
Chat and instant communication on the platform: After team discussions and consulting with the company's product team, we ultimately decided not to develop this solution due to existing efficient tools like Slack and Gmail. However, we considered how to integrate these existing solutions into our product to enhance the experience, specifically aiming for a smart integration between Slack and similar tools with the Voltax system.
Subsequently, we focused on resolving the collaboration and work management issues on the platform, using three main principles:
Prioritization and Workload Management: The main issue repeatedly highlighted was the inefficient daily routine that wastes the time of editors and writers, delaying their actual work. An integrated system that supports these processes can reduce unnecessary workload and maximize actual work.
System Status Visibility: The platform will display the status of articles and tasks, considering key parameters, thereby creating a clear hierarchy of importance.
Consistency and Standards: Our all-in-one system will be based on a structured work template that ensures consistent communication methods across different teams. This will maximize efficiency and eliminate duplication caused by various communication forms.
MVP
Portotype Screens
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Feedbacks from Minute media team
Very impressive, both the volume of work and its quality, also the attention to detail and the depth of thought behind it, your presentation is very beautiful. The presentation was both visual and in terms of its storytelling, well organized, there are a lot of interesting ideas that you suggested. You took the project with both hands and squeezed all the juice out of it. It makes me very excited to see it. You were confronted not only with the collaboration in terms of transferring the tasks from one to the other, but also through the reinforcements and thinking about analytics and how everything must be backed up by data and rewards for users. I really liked the prototype, its story. The integration with Slack is very clever, I don't think we even thought about it when we were talking about the notifications all the time - so inhale.
Next Steps
Usability Testing: This process helps identify usability issues, navigation challenges, or areas needing user experience improvement.
Editor Trends: Incorporating trends for editors and writers to identify new topics and popular sports categories for generating articles.
Continued Research and Application: Further research in behavioral psychology and its applications on the platform to understand motivations and preferences, aiming to enhance user engagement and satisfaction.
Deliver - Design rationalee of selected features
Using an "Overview" display based on Miller's "7 +/- 2" principle in a content management system helps a writing team keep track of their tasks simply and clearly. This method makes it easier to manage tasks without overwhelming the team with too much information.
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Title: Input the title of the article, such as "Jude Bellingham passes Real Madrid medical."
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Prioritization: Choose a priority level (High, Medium, Low) to indicate the urgency of the task.
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Assign Writer(s): Select a writer from the dropdown menu or set the task as "Free to assign" if no specific writer is needed immediately.
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Due Date: Set a deadline for when the task should be completed.
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Notes: Add any relevant details or special instructions for the writer in this field.
This setup in the system you showed helps in efficiently managing and organizing content production tasks.
Integrating a variety of notifications into the tools our users work with to maintain convenience and flexibility, but also to connect them to the workflow on the platform. For example, creating notifications that send information and calls to action to Slack, Gmail based on actions in the system. There are also alerts within the product itself.
Thank you for reading, please check my other project
